Sprint, T-Mobile: The Price War's On

Up to this point, the pricing changes the US wireless operators have been making have seemed more like rhetoric than actual savings, but now both Sprint and T-Mobile are signaling that the price war is about to get real.

First T-Mobile US Inc. lowered its family plan pricing to $100 for 4 lines and 10GB of data, a full $60 less than the competition. The deal does have its caveats -- each line is limited to 2.5GB and it's only available until the end of September -- but it's a pretty compelling offer if you can act quickly.

Hesse noted that while the plans were competitive when they launched earlier this year, the market dynamics have changed. As such, Sprint plans to experiment with lower pricing plans. The Sprint boss said these experiments will be for both unlimited and tiered plans, but stressed that customers still really want unlimited, so he'd be "very surprised" if new plans don't have an unlimited element.

"It was competitive then, but it's become less competitive at certain line levels," Hesse admitted of Sprint's Framily plans. "It's too early to have results, but we'll learn from those trials. We haven't made decisions yet, but may need to make adjustments to pricing levels based on what we learned."

On the prepaid front, Sprint's Virgin Mobile USA Inc. (NYSE: VM) brand launched a new Wal-Mart exclusive plan, Virgin Mobile Custom, that lets customers build plans around their usage -- lines start at $6.98 a month, plus $5 unlimited access to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Instagram, or all four for an extra $10 per month. The plans are changeable on the fly from customers' mobile phones and also include granular parental controls.

The new plan, like AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T)'s toll-free data plans, is already getting some flack for encouraging use of certain apps over others, but it's something Sprint more or less admitted it's exploring as well.

It's clear that operators are moving from treading lightly into pricing customization into full-fledged data plan shakeups and experiments. This should ultimately be a good thing for the carriers and potentially even their customers, especially if the price war that Sprint and T-Mobile are trying to spark does take hold.

Re: Big difference We are an election office, so our needs are seasonal. The $3,000 per month is an average, with much of it spent in two separate one-week periods. So, we wouldn't really be swinging, but you're right--we have a sweet deal on the handsets ($0).

The bigger issue with other carriers would be the ability to leave them--not just termination fees, but investing the time to get to a live person to cancel (it's a bad horror movie if you have AT&T service and try to cancel on the web).

Re: Big difference Yes it's pretty awesome bang for the buck, I'm sure complaints and coverage are regionally dependent, but my most frequent hangouts are all pretty well covered where I'll get at least HSPA+, but I do sync up to the LTE network as well. I was on a single bar as far as reception and pulled about 10mbps down/6 up during peak hours. Maybe I'll try and do some spot testing during different times in different areas. While that's far from stellar, I'm not sure of all the factors and have no reference.

Re: Big difference I run a government office, about the size of a medium-sized small business, 16 full-time employees, 50 part-time, and about 2,000 seasonal. Cellular (is it really called that--it's really a subset of "mobile" or "wireless "and it seems so pretention to say 3G/LTE) is a large expense for us.

We use hotspots, smartphones, and tablets, and our telecom costs this year will be about $3,000 a month.

We use Sprint and have an excellent account manager. I used to work for Sprint, 10 years ago at this point, so that might have helped us get more attention or better service initially, but if he changed jobs, I don't think we'd get the time of day from any of the carriers. We would be telesales at best.

There's something between "Framily" and enterprise, and it seems like a sweet spot not being addressed.

I'd agree with that sentiment. I know alot of business users that still continue with Sprint only for the grandfathered plans. I bet if they had a choice now, they'd take thir business elsewhere. It's going to be interesting to see where they go next if those users jump ship.

Re: Big difference I think the Sprint business panache is more legacy than real. Sprint bought Nextel, not knowing why, really--thinkiing it was for "push to talk" but really Nextel was an animal in the small business and government segments. Much of that tenacity is gone. Meanwhile, Sprint never had an advantage in the Enterprise space and lost competencies on the wireline side. Sprint is about as much of a consumer play as T-Mobile going forward, I think.

Re: Big difference In my local area, most people I talk to about Sprint have nothing but complaints, including business customers and MVNO customers. While T-Mobile is viewed as the value play. I'm a T-Mobile customer myself, and though I'm not contributing to their bottom line much, I'm very happy getting my 5G for $30 month, granted I only have a 100 minutes but who actually uses their phone to talk? ;) ATT and Verizon definitely have better networks but you pay for it. I guess I could get a group together and make a family plan...

Andrew Coward discusses what the New IP means to end users or enterprise customers. He explains compelling reasons, including how every customer can get their own network, from the transformation to the New IP.

Mukund Srigopal provides an explanation of what network visibility is and how it is essential as service providers transition to the New IP. In addition, the importance of the network packet broker is discussed.

Ali Kafel from Stratus Technologies addresses high-availability concerns within the telco industry with a solution that enables telcos to provide high-availability and stateful fault-tolerance using a software-based approach.

Guavus CEO Anukool Lakhina talks to Light Reading founder and CEO Steve Saunders about the role of operational analytics in the communications services and networking sectors, particularly in relation to IoT.

Saran Phaloprakarn, Senior VP of Fixed Broadband Business Management of Thailand's AIS, was a keynote speaker at the first Asia-Pacific Ultra Broadband Summit in Bangkok. In this video, he talks to Heavy Reading about transforming into an FMC (FBB+MBB+Content) operator.

Andrew Coward discusses what the New IP means to end users or enterprise customers. He explains compelling reasons, including how every customer can get their own network, from the transformation to the New IP.

Mukund Srigopal provides an explanation of what network visibility is and how it is essential as service providers transition to the New IP. In addition, the importance of the network packet broker is discussed.

Ali Kafel from Stratus Technologies addresses high-availability concerns within the telco industry with a solution that enables telcos to provide high-availability and stateful fault-tolerance using a software-based approach.

Saran Phaloprakarn, Senior VP of Fixed Broadband Business Management of Thailand's AIS, was a keynote speaker at the first Asia-Pacific Ultra Broadband Summit in Bangkok. In this video, he talks to Heavy Reading about transforming into an FMC (FBB+MBB+Content) operator.

In this video, Chakyra Moa, Chairman of Telecommunication Regulator of Cambodia (TRC), talks in in-depth with Heavy Reading about the Cambodia's current telecom market and TRC's goals and expectations for the future.

Software-defined networking and network functions virtualization have become key components to any network that hopes to be future proof. Huawei shows that openness can become a reality at the Open Networking Summit in Santa Clara.

Sterling Perrin, senior analyst of Heavy Reading, sat down with Phoukhong Chithoublok, Acting Director General of Lao's Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications' Department of Planning and Cooperation, to discuss the future of national broadband for Lao.

Guavus CEO Anukool Lakhina talks to Light Reading founder and CEO Steve Saunders about the role of operational analytics in the communications services and networking sectors, particularly in relation to IoT.